SEVEN POINTS IN arrears last Sunday against Tipperary, seven points clear a week on against Limerick.

Cork’s hurling fortunes have swung sharply in the space of seven days in Munster, this afternoon’s success in Limerick a striking response after such a flat opening to their provincial campaign at home.

John Meyler gives a young fan a sliotar before the game after she was accidentally knocked over by a player.

Source: James Crombie/INPHO

For manager John Meyler there was no real mystery as to why they enjoyed such a rate of improvement. His players grafted harder and got their reward.

“Work rate. That’s all. We really got buckets of work rate today and I’m delighted with that and that’s the bottom line.

“Cork are always a summer hurling team, it’s just getting that work rate up. They’re a good team. Look I’m delighted with the performance and we responded well after last week’s defeat.”

John Meyler celebrates with Cork selector Donal O’Mahony.

Source: James Crombie/INPHO

The Cork boss lost Bill Cooper before throw-in last Sunday and he’s had to operate without Alan Cadogan since August 2017 in championship matters. He hailed the contribution of both to this success, Cooper one of four changes to the starting side and Cadogan sprung into action early on after Conor Lehane was injured.

“Bill Cooper is the leader there, Bill Cooper is the driver, he drives that team, he was missing in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. That’s it in a nutshell.

“It’s great to have Alan back. He’s out probably the best part of 15 months, not having played really. It’s difficult for him to come on and to be as sharp as the rest of them and that. We’ll work on that now in the next three weeks.

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“(Robert) Downey played well in the league here, (Aidan) Walsh played well. We reintroduced those and they worked well so everybody played their part. (Declan) Dalton came on, got two great scores. That’s their job.”

Meyler felt Cork benefited from having greater match practice, last week’s Tipperary clash

“You had the advantage of having played the match last week and not coming in cold here today. That’s really it. We’d one or two issues, we’d one or two problems, we tried to sort them out.

“In fairness to Donal (O’Mahony) and Fraggy they sorted them out, so it’s good. The advantage of having a game played is a huge advantage. You kind of highlight your weaknesses and then you can work on that.

“We weren’t happy with aspects of our performance last week against Tipperary. Everybody picked holes in it and if you lose that’s what’s going to happen. We tried to get it right for today and we did get it right.”

Another loss would have left Cork’s season in a precarious position but Meyler was not weighed down by a sense of pressure entering this game.

“You’re always under pressure. Every manager of every county team is under pressure. If you don’t win matches you’re under pressure and we needed a win, we needed a performance today.

“We need to now maintain that consistency against Waterford in three weeks time.”

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